I swear that I came across this video only this morning and totally by accident.  I was searching for something else completely, and this showed up.

A bit of history first.

Back in 1976, legends Leonard Bernstein and Alan Jay Lerner teamed up to write a musical, 1600 Pennsylvania.  Given that it was from the writer of West Side Story and the writer of My Fair Lady, the show was understandably highly anticipated.  The general premise of the story was the history of the first 100 years of White House as seen through the eyes of the servants.  (Okay, I'm sure you can probably see where this is going -- but it's goes even farther than you likely think...)  The show, however, which also dealt with racial injustice, was a disastrous flop, running for only seven performances. The writers wouldn't allow there to be an original cast album (which may have been pursued because of their pedigree.)  Many years later, though, after Bernstein's death, a concert version of the score was arranged and an album released, called A White House Cantata.

My college roommate at Northwestern, Jim Backstrom, was later working in Philadelphia at the time and went to see the show in its pre-Broadway tryout.  He said that it was so terrible that most of the audience left at the intermission -- however, he stayed to the end, because he wanted to see if the trainwreck could get much worse.

When it played on Broadway, the only person who survived the critics was Patricia Routledge.  She had an acclaimed, 62-year career in musicals both on Broadway and in London, even winning a Tony Award for another flop musical, Darling of the Day.  However, she's probably best known to Americans for her British series Keeping Up Appearances, that on PBS for years.  (As it happens, when on a trip to Toronto, I saw her in yet another pre-Broadway musical that also closed out of town, Say Hello to Harvey," based on the movie Harvey, in which she starred with Donald O'Connor. It wasn't bad -- book, music and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse -- but it was a gentle story that didn't cry out to be sung.  But I digress...)

In 1600 Pennsylvania, she played every U.S. First Lady from Abigail Adams through Lucy Webb Hayes.  And she had a number that, despite the musical's terrible reception, stopping the show on opening night, "Duet for One."

It was another of her songs, though, which is the point here.

In 1987, there was a tribute production in London, An Evening with Alan Jay Lerner.  And for that event, Patricia Routledge appeared and performed this other song, for which there is a  video -- that is what I came across.  I knew the song, so the moment I saw it on YouTube, it floored me for its timing.  Because its title is far too meaningful this week, which is obviously the reason it couldn't help but leap out.  That title?  "Take Care of This House."

Yes, really.

Sometimes, it turns out, happily, that one's lifelong obscure and arguably haywire appreciation of Broadway musicals and their history isn't merely a frivolous use of time...

The song begins --

​​Take care of this house
Keep it from harm
If bandits break in
Sound the alarm
 
Care for this house
Shine it by hand
And keep it so clean
The glow can be seen
All over the land
 
Be careful at night
Check all the doors
If someone makes off with a dream
The dream will be yours

Here's the video and Patricia Routledge's performance of the song.

I'll post the full lyrics below.

​​Take care of this house
Keep it from harm
If bandits break in
Sound the alarm
 
Care for this house
Shine it by hand
And keep it so clean
The glow can be seen
All over the land
 
Be careful at night
Check all the doors
If someone makes off with a dream
The dream will be yours
 
Take care of this house
Be always on call
For this house
Is the hope of us all
 
Take care of this house
Keep it from harm
If bandits break in
Sound the alarm
 
Care for this house
Shine it by hand
And keep it so clean
The glow can be seen
All over the land
 
Be careful at night
Check all the doors
If someone makes off with a dream
The dream will be yours
 
Take care of this house
Be always on call
Care for this house
It's the hope of us all

Gee, and it seemed like such a good idea at the time...

Readers here may recall an article I posted here a few weeks ago about a crackerjack plan by the National Park Service to put up signage that would ask visitors to report what they thought in the park showed American history in a negative light.  Sort of act like Minutemen Watchdogs.

When contacted by NPR, the Department of the Interior, which oversees the National Park Service explained: "The effort ensures public lands reflect an accurate portrayal of American history and heritage."

Because, of course, visitors on vacation from across the country and around the world are all considered experts in American history and heritage -- rather than are there to learn about it.

Anyway, NPR thought it was worth checking how things was going with the whiz-bang idea.  And so they took a look at many dozens of comments submitted during the week of June 4 to 12 about the signs in parks throughout the U.S.

It turns out that visitors had a mind of their own. 

"The point of going to a park is to enjoy nature, not to whistleblow something that casts the American people in a bad light," said Evan Sutterfield, a San Francisco school teacher on his summer break.

"I think you need to tell the whole story," said Russ Harwell, visiting from Charlotte, N.C. "If you're gonna write it out of history, then you're doomed to repeat it."

Linda Mosinian from Milwaukee, Wis. wrote: "I think this is a waste of time." 

In none of the submitted comments that NPR reviewed did anyone, they said, "suggest that the parks need to change their depictions of people or history."

Some did at least say that politely.  Like --

"The park rangers and volunteers go above and beyond to tell the full American story," stated a comment about Catoctin Mountain Park in Maryland.

And as it happens, some even said that national parks should reflect even more of the country's difficult history. "Need more history on how black and indigenous people have been exploited," one comment stated.

Furthermore, as NPR wrote, "Accuracy isn't a given, because feedback can be submitted through a general website or email address accessible from anywhere in the world.
That was reflected in a statement from Clara Wooden, a member of the board of The Coalition to Protect America's National Parks. "What would stop somebody with an agenda from posting fake comments? People at both ends of the ideological spectrum can game the system without even setting foot in a national park."

If you want to read the full article, you can find it here.

​That's how you get beyond not just the things that put your country in a "negative light," but created historic shame for you past.  When you hide that, and pretend that it doesn't happen, it continues.

Showing what in your past puts it in a negative light doesn't lessen what you've done that so good, or even great, or even noble.  It shows how you've transcended what was bad and makes your achievements all the greater.

Even more to the point, as philosopher George Santayana famously wrote, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

All this aside, what on earth is the National Park Service doing trying to obliterate history and reality?? 

Okay, given that the person doing this is a Trump appointee, the question basically answers itself.  But the question still stands, and the answer remains disgraceful.

Trump and today's MAGOPs don't want to acknowledge that we had slaves here.  That many Black people couldn't vote until the 1960s.  That women couldn't vote until 1920.  That Southern states ceded from the Union.  That we had a Civil War.  That we interred American citizens who happened to have Japanese heritage.  And far more.  America is not perfect, it's full of flaws.  But by acknowledging that, it lets us grow and move beyond it.

Very early in his career, Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia was a low-level official in the Ku Klux Klan.  But he not only came to be abhorred by his actions, he later became one of the leading Civil Rights activists.  And even more to the point, in 2005, he wrote in his autobiography that he not only didn't want to hide his past, he wanted to be continually reminded of it -- so that it couldn't be forgotten and he could eternally apologize for it.  He wrote, "I know now I was wrong. Intolerance had no place in America. I apologized a thousand times … and I don't mind apologizing over and over again. I can't erase what happened."

That's why you don't hide a country's past.  To do so doesn't get rid of that past, it lets it fester and live.

In some ways, you get the sense that that is Trump's goal, and MAGOPs, too.  To sneak an unhappy truth through the cracks as if it never existed.  To create that Trumpian "alternative reality."

Alternative reality is not reality.  History exists.  To deny it, all of it, just destroys those who try to pretend it isn't reality.  And is a reprehensible disgrace to those who lived it and suffered.  And is a disservice to the country when it faced its past and improved. 

Well...a disservice to those in the country who faced it.  And improved.  Some people sadly refuse to face reality and improve.

Hey, here's a thought!

If Germany can openly face its Nazi and holocaust past of when Adolf Hitler tried to literally take over the world -- then I really think the U.S. National Park Service can handle any visitors who don't like that something at the park puts the country in a negative light. 

Which the park should do have, because there actually, honestly, really was a time in the country's past that it truly did do something negative.

And y'know...I really think the country as a whole can handle it, too.  Because...we did! For a very long time.  Taught in schools, accepted as a part of U.S. history.  At least, up until Trump, and his tender, sensitive heart.  In his defense of brutality, racism and hatred.

 
For those who like to look at the calendar for such things, today is the 81st  anniversary of D-Day, June 6, 1944.  I thought it would therefore be especially appropriate to post this video.  It's the wonderful theme to the movie, The Longest Day, sung and performed most appropriately by the Cadet Glee Club of West Point, along with military band.
 
I first posted this video eight years ago in 2017.  It’s my favorite one on the subject – not just for the performance, but for how movingly the video is edited.  It's particularly well-done, beginning with a minute of General Dwight Eisenhower's message to the troops before the invasion began, and interspersed with some excellent photos and archival film from the day, amid the soaring music.
 
By the way, the timpani you hear before the song begins is not only recognizable as the beginning of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, but more to the point, it's the Morse Code for “V” for Victory.
 
Also, in case you weren't aware, the main theme for The Longest Day, used throughout the film not just in the end titles, was written by pop-star heartthrob at the time, Paul Anka.

I will only add that today commemorates when the United States and democracies around the world came together to fight and defeat Nazis and fascism.

Although I cancelled my many-decades subscription to the Los Angeles Times after one too-many unacceptable abuses by its current owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, I'm still on their mailing list.  And today, I received the following email that told an absolutely fascinating story.  (I've left in the hyperlinks for those who might still have a subscription.)  It read -- 

"Mostly forgotten today, Mary Pickford was once the world’s most famous actress, and perhaps its most famous woman. But by the time The Los Angeles Times sent a plucky young intern to ring the doorbell at Pickford’s Beverly Hills home in 1974, the silent movie star and co-founder of United Artists was 80 years old and had been living in a self-imposed seclusion for more than a decade. 

"The resulting encounter — recounted with poise and humor by the intern, Joan Zyda, who was just 21 at the time — is a ghostly, charming classic. The setting is the Xanadu-like mansion, Pickfair, where Pickford and her first husband, Douglas Fairbanks Sr., reigned over lavish dinner parties with celebrities of the day, including U.S. presidents, Charlie Chaplin, Albert Einstein, Helen Keller, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Amelia Earhart. 

"On that day in 1974, however, Pickford could not be coaxed downstairs from her bedroom to meet with Zyda, forcing her doting, gracious third husband Buddy Rogers to instead give the reporter an old-fashioned rotary dial phone on which she could interview Pickford from a downstairs sitting room. 

"Pickford — unseen by Zyda throughout the entire meeting — nonetheless proves a surprisingly sparkling, if enigmatic, interviewee, offering her views on cinema; her pioneering career as a Hollywood businesswoman who retained an unusual degree of control over her career; of the current crop of male stars (“none since Gable” impressed her, she said); and even of Watergate. 

"Two years after the piece was published, Pickford did appear again in public, when she consented to be filmed at her home for a pre-recorded acceptance of an honorary Oscar, a bookend to go with her first Oscar, awarded in 1929. She died in 1979. 

"This classic story is being republished as part of 'L.A. Timeless,' a selection of great reads from the Los Angeles Times’ 143-year archive."

In hopes that perhaps some articles they send emails about would be available to the non-subscribing public, I checked out the link.  But unfortunately, no, it was blocked and for subscribers only.  I was able, however, to get the very opening -- which, brief though it was, was movingly touching on its own.

                                                 By JOAN ZYDA
                                               Times Staff Writer 
                                                 March 3, 1974

​“Just let me go tell her you’re here.”

Former Matinee idol Buddy Rogers bounded by the winding staircase to the third floor of his Beverly Hills mansion and called to his wife of 37 years: “Mary, darling. You have a visitor, pet.”

There were murmurs upstairs. Then Rogers walked slowly down the white steps to his visitor beneath the portrait of Mary Pickford in the spacious living room.

He shrugged and shook his head. “Mrs. Rogers would like to see you, darling, but she’s in the shower, dear.”

The good news is that the video referenced in the email -- of when the Motion Picture Academy presented Mary Pickford with an honorary Oscar in 1976, for which she agreed to appear in public in a pre-recorded film for that year's Oscar ceremony -- is available online.  And what a lovely, moving tribute it is.  Lovingly done and presented for the broadcast -- down to the last moment of the clip, cutting back to the audience.  Honoring not just a Hollywood legend of massive work onscreen, but also a businesswoman who helped change the movie industry as a partner in the creation of United Artists studio.  And as the camera winds its way through her renowned estate of Pickfair, it honors, as well, a bygone era of Hollywood. 

In some ways, as the video progresses, it's hard not to think of Billy Wilder's classic movie, Sunset Boulevard.  But not for its dark cynicism, rather for the sweetness that age of movies brought to the country and world.  Though clearly frail, her words and appearance give grace to it all.  

I've written in the past a few times about my friend Steve Fiffer back in Chicago (okay, Evanston...).  Steve is a wonderful writer, with many non-fiction books to his credit -- including most recently collaborating on the memoir of Civil Rights legend C.T. Vivian. His wife Sharon is also an accomplished writer of the "Jane Wheel" mystery series.  And his mother was a medical technician in my dad's doctor office for years.

A few years ago, Steve and Sharon come up with the idea for a website that they called Storied Stuff, which I've mentioned here.  They call it "Show-and-Tell for grownups."  Basically, they get people to write in brief stories about treasured items them have, which they've kept for decades. The site came about during the Pandemic, as a way to draw people close together -- but it's continued on since with great success, now with over 500 stories, many of them deeply touching, some of them fascinating.  As Sharon has said about the project, "Every bit of stuff we hang on to or are drawn to, tells a story. The universal, after all, is found in the specific.”

Well, it turns out that Steve and Sharon have just published the first volume of what they expect to be a three-volume anthology. 
​

I mention this for two reasons.  The first and most important is because their effort is such a good one.  The other, because they include one of the two short pieces I wrote for the site.  

It's a story I wrote about baseball cards, though not the general idea of collecting them, but rather deals with two very special cards that I still have to this day which stand out in baseball history for a particular reason.  It's a story about an event that half a century later is still galling to Cubs fans, but no doubt gives the inveterate Chris Dunn great pleasure -- what is considered the worst trade in the history of baseball, known in baseball lore as "Brock-for-Broglio."  And I have cards for the players involved from before the trade,  This is that tale.